Polina Kostiukovich & Aleksei Briukhanov

[BabySloth]

Congrats to Polina & Alexei for their win today. For a new team they work really well together.

I loved their spinning lifts (sorry don't know how to call it XD) they looked badass. Good luck to them in the long run, I will definitely be watching out for them at future comps.

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

Congrats to Polina & Alexei for their win today. I only realized yesterday that Polina has a new partner (I missed their last comp), but they work really well together.

I loved their spinning lifts (sorry don't know how to call it XD) they looked badass. Good luck to them in the long run, I will definitely be watching out for them at future comps.

I love their new lifts too. I think this team has incredible prospects, should they stay healthy and Polina does not grow too much. He is only 18, so if she grows then he might too. He still looks quite young.

I haven't found videos yet, but Polina's instagram seems to indicate win. Thsi means they are guarenteed a spot at junior nationals. I don't think they have plans to compete senior this year, but they might be able to get a spot at sr nationals, or even at Rostelecom if enough teams withdraw.

as much as I love Polina/Alexei's lifts, I still miss the little pop lift that Dima did

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

Thanks for posting the performances. We probably won't see them again until junior nationals. The battle between Artemeva/Nazarychev, Kostiukovich/Briukhanov, and Akhanteva/Kolesov will be fierce. Should junior worlds be held, either could come out on top.

That helicopter lift is quite scary indeed - but they are gaining many points for their lifts. If they want to really secure a win over A/N and A/K, then they will have to upgrade something. The judges are warming up to them in terms of being a new team, but the gap is still small. I'd say either get Alexei to be more charismatic, really work on Polina's jumps (and rearrange them - did she lose her 2T+2T combo?) or try a quad twist. This team has quite a bit of potential. Bring on junior nationals.

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

Btw, if anyone has a translation of the interview, that would be great

 

[gordana]

Btw, if anyone has a translation of the interview, that would be great

Here you are.

OE: Polina Kostiukovich and Aleksei Briukhanov, the guys have won their second Russian Cup event in a row. Perhaps they themselves didn’t expect such things to happen. I am very happy for you. That is a great job, because your team is new and such a good beginning. How would you comment it yourselves?

PK: Yes, we didn’t expect it either, but we aimed for it. Working hard during the quarantine, we already understood what we want, what for we are doing it. And our duo was set up for wins.

OE: Lyosha, what would you add?

PK: I have said everything.
AB: Yes, Polina said everything. I totally agree to it. And concerning the routine, we are glad with our skate. We even improved the result comparing to previous competitions. But we still have a lot of things to work on.

OE: On what (to work)?

PK: I can say about the short programme. Emotionally I liked the first skate more. I don’t know why, but it went somehow more or less calm. And in the free programme we somehow a bit got exhausted. But we will work on it and evolve ourselves to the next competitions. And I think it will be Junior Nationals for us.

OE: For your free you have a bright piece of music, but however it is a classical one, Musorgsky. And how to do it all? First, your team is new and you have to adjust to each other. Second, you have to execute all the elements. And third, you have to perform a various music of three different parts. It is a rather complicated task for pairs skating.

PK: Yes. This music was offered to us by Nikolai Matveyevich (Velikov). We had been thinking about the free programme for a long time, have been resisting. Frankly speaking, I didn’t like the piece of music at first, totally, up to crying, I didn’t want it to be choreographed, I didn’t want to skate to it. But the clock was striking and we had to have a free programme choreographed, and to run it through. We had the routine made during one training day. It is, as we were told, a record in our training group. We are the only ones who got the free ready for the couple of trainings.
First, I had a plan in my had that after getting it ready I will ask to change the music. But later it became my piece of cake when we began to think about the costumes, added arms and adding of arms created an image. Because at first I didn’t understand which image we will perform. Because there are three different pieces and it is called...”Pictures at an exhibition”. I had no idea what is it about. It seemed to me that it is something like a Humpy-Horsey from a tale, but it is not like that and so it…

OE: Began to sparkle.

PK: Yes, it began to sparkle with new colours and I like it very much now.

OE: Guys, now you are going to be back to St. Petersburg and it will be work, work for Junior Nationals, or some competitions as well, maybe school-level ones?

AB: Maybe it will be some St. Petesrburg Cup stage or St. Petersburg Cup Final. Maybe in December, at the beginning of December. And we have to enhance our layout.
PK: We will work on jumps, a thousand percent, on a twist levels, on exits from the elements, on transitions, on speed, because it is easier to skate a routine in a training than in a competition. And in a competition you have to show the best of yourself. So far it doesn’t work well, but we are working on it.

OE: You know, you are so different. I am interviewing you and see that you are so different in character, in temper, in appearance. But the most important thing is that you found mutual understanding not only on ice, but off-ice as well, as I understand. You can make agreements, solve difficult goals and I wish you to achieve your common goal, to succeed in everything, and everything to be better and better from competition to competition.

PK, AB: Thank you.

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

New interview today with Fstop: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHqCRXKpiGx/

Rough google translation. Please feel free to give a more accurate version.

The pandemic disrupted pre-season training, prevneted many from taking shape and confidently speaking at the stages of the Russian Cup. But not only a couple new, Polina Kostiukovich and Alexei Briukhanov, who not only demonstrated decent rental, but also took away the gold medal of the two stages. We will not talk about the past, about the collapse of couples, after all, skaters talked about it in the off season. Polina and Alexei will answer questions about a real newly educated couple specifically for our group.

I: Polina, many remember the incendiary girl from the kiss and cry at the 2018 junior worlds, where you and your previous partner Dmitri Ialin won silver. Now you have changed, matured, and it was not easy. Tell me, how did you manage to cope with "the new body?" What is your height now?

PK: I am now 147.5cm. I'm struggling with my new body so far. Working on yourself, especially on the body is work that needs daily control.

I: Polina, you have excellent stretching and support looks particularly spectacular! Is it natural of acquired? How do you support it?

PK: Honestly, my stretching leaves me wanting the best, but as a child, I spent a lot of time stretching, and it didn't go without a trace.

I: We know that the guys are fearless, however, as it was, to decide on high support with the new partner, or to go with the release?

PK: I trusted Lesha, I was very comfortable with him. It was fun, as he is a little taller than Dima and I got new sensations. Emissions were a little harder, as the technique was different at first.

I: Alexei, not only did you get up with a new partner, but you also changed the group moved from Tamara Moskvina and Oleg Vasiliev to the Velikovs. What was unusual and new in training approaches?

AB: I can't say it was unusual and new, approaches are similar, can't highlight anything specifc, each coach has his own unique ideas and chips.

There is more in the next pictures of the post, but I only read so much cyrillic

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

Sad news today, as junior worlds are officially cancelled. This would've been quite the year for a first year team, I really liked their programs. I don't know if they would've beaten Artemeva/Nazarychev but they would've medaled for sure. Good thing is that they are still junior eligible next season, so they can have their moment then. I'm a little worried that Yulia/Mikhail will have missed their moment after this, but it is what it is.

Not sure if its' good for a global pandemic, but good for entertainment and athletes, all Russian competitions are going ahead like normal. So Polina/Alexei can aim for a top 3 finish at junior nationals, and maybe go to some St. Petersburg competitions. They will probably keep at least one program for next season.

 

[gordana]

St Petersburg Junior Championship
Polina's and Aleksei's SP is from 05:31:11

 

[Edwin]

Polina has an interesting TikTok account, she is quite a rebellious teen in her spare time.

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

Polina has an interesting TikTok account, she is quite a rebellious teen in her spare time.

She posts some of it on instagram. I wonder what is up with all the heartbreak emojis lately. I hope she is ok, but it seems that she just likes to have fun sometimes. Interesting personality. She has hard training every day, so where she gets her energy for all the other things, I would like to know.

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

St Petersburg Champions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRzyFgpmUbg

It seems that there are no plans to compete in seniors this year. Not a bad thing. It was a great performance, and Alexei is performing a little bit more. But I really really worry for Polina's triple jumps. HEr 2A is bent legged and shaky, her 3S is very inconsistent, and it's clear that she's lost all her toe jumps, even her 2T+2T combo. I hope she can get it sorted out and this won't be come another brilliant team destroyed by jumps.

 

[hanca]

St Petersburg Champions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRzyFgpmUbg

It seems that there are no plans to compete in seniors this year. Not a bad thing. It was a great performance, and Alexei is performing a little bit more. But I really really worry for Polina's triple jumps. HEr 2A is bent legged and shaky, her 3S is very inconsistent, and it's clear that she's lost all her toe jumps, even her 2T+2T combo. I hope she can get it sorted out and this won't be come another brilliant team destroyed by jumps.

They are doing as well as it can be expected; in fact, I would say they are exceeding expectations for a newly created pair with a girl who struggled with jumps the whole last season. I think this season is massive improvement. There is no point comparing them with seniors, they chose to be skating in juniors this season. And if we compare them with current juniors on the team - Akhanteva/Kolesov struggles as much as Kostiukovich, Mukhortova/Evgeneev looks quite strong this season but she doesn’t do well 2A (which is unfortunate because 2A is compulsory in junior SP), Mukametzianova/Mironov struggle badly this season and it seems that Mukhametzianova is going through the puberty. Artemeva/Nazarychev are doing fine this season, but they did have a problem with consistency last season - sometimes they were great, other times just ok. In comparison to them, Kostiukovich/Briukhanov looks they are work in progress, but not worse work in progress than the others.

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

JR nationals qualifiers:
Junior pairs:

1. Polina Kostiukovich/Alexei Briukhanov
2. Alina Raskovalova/Artem Butaev
3. Anastasia Mukhortova/Dmitri Evgeniev
4. Ekaterina Petushkova/Evgeni Malikov
5. Karina Safina/Sergei Bakhmat
6. Daria Boyarintseva/Maxim Shagalov
7. Ekaterina Storublevtseva/Artem Gritsaenko
8. Tatiana Kuzmina/Alexei Khvalko
9. Ekaterina Belova/Dmitrii Chigiriev

Qualified from seniors:

1. Yulia Artemeva/Mikhail Nazarychev
2. Ksenia Akhanteva/Valeri Kolesov
3. Diana Mukhametzianova/Ilya Mironov (?)

 

[hanca]

JR nationals qualifiers:
Junior pairs:

1. Polina Kostiukovich/Alexei Briukhanov
2. Alina Raskovalova/Artem Butaev
3. Anastasia Mukhortova/Dmitri Evgeniev
4. Ekaterina Petushkova/Evgeni Malikov
5. Karina Safina/Sergei Bakhmat
6. Daria Boyarintseva/Maxim Shagalov
7. Ekaterina Storublevtseva/Artem Gritsaenko
8. Tatiana Kuzmina/Alexei Khvalko
9. Ekaterina Belova/Dmitrii Chigiriev

Qualified from seniors:

1. Yulia Artemeva/Mikhail Nazarychev
2. Ksenia Akhanteva/Valeri Kolesov
3. Diana Mukhametzianova/Ilya Mironov (?)

You forgot Kargulina/Kalashnikov. Which means that Belova/Chigiriev won’t qualify.

 

[gsk8]

Hi all!

I sent a PM out a few days ago regarding the Video Project. If you are interested in doing this team (or anyone else), shoot me a PM!

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

Georgy Kunitsa threw a birthday party recently and Polina was in attendance. I hope that nobody at the party was infected....

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

The guys are in Krasnoyarsk, looking fierce for the draw https://www.instagram.com/p/CKy_8rxpl0t/

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

Junior national championships 2021. I'm really proud of these guys and how far they have come, and I believe they have so much potential. That hug at the end got me in tears nearly. It seems like they are a little disappointed with how they did, Polina in particular, but he also seemed to have some weird/painful left shoulder movements in the short particularly. It was a great year, and next year will be the last in juniors so I expect to see them competing more, and in both seniors and juniors. In my humble opinion, they were robbed of bronze, but a great result and performance nonetheless.

A lot has come together this season, but there are still things to be worked at. Polina's jump technique has completely gone with puberty, and she should take some time to rework it since that really held them back this year. Perhaps they could send her to Mishin's for a little while. And Lesha has a beautiful smile, I hope that he will use it more.....and please keep the bird program. I love it so much.

SP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crDQRwvuHvk&t=13s
FS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU6IfrFPBVQ&t=250s

 

[eterislouisvuitton]

Russian cup final, they were 3rd, though they could have been first it was still a great result. Polina looked quite down, hope she won't be too upset (and happy 18th bday too!)

SP: https://youtu.be/ySk_6wxJPvA?t=15471
FP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn8X555-eHA&t=316s

Interview with Olga Ermolina (I heard on insta that they are planning on competing jr/sr next season, changing both prorams, and working on jumps cause they had to work on pair elements and couldn't pay attention to jumps last summer after quarantine/injury but please it would be great if there is a better translation) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md5Zev1BykM&t=

Photos:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMCGmTFli18/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CL-4c7yFaSr/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CL7NUrWJeT2/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CL-PRAKpoNY/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CL-N0D9JuNI/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CL-NCGRJ3zh/

 

[flanker]

From training:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMPdmKhp77o/

And some more from the Cup final and the medal ceremony:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CMPdmKhp77o/